musings

Tag Archives: depression

There was a big, fat, cheeky, cheerful squirrel (as is the case on most days) performing acrobatic stunts and possibly saying “na na nana boo boo!” (in the language of squirrels) as he faced Jane’s wall of glass this morning from his perch atop the vertical slats of the wooden fence.

It was six degrees Fahrenheit. I know this because my Volkswagen told me so as I drove my creaky, holiday-overstuffed body to practice yoga this morning.

These are the mornings I want to stay in bed, to plead the case to myself that if I just stay home from yoga and diet for a few days, I will feel SO MUCH BETTER about going. Because for the past 60 days or so, I have been traveling, drinking, eating sumptuous roasts and the fatted calf and the sacrificial lamb and Burgermeister Meisterburger’s turkey leg…and the cookies. And enough chocolate for an entire neighborhood’s Halloween. And I’ve loved it, but my scale says I’ve loved it ten pounds worth. And my skin is itchy. And my sinuses are sneezy. Even my elbows are fat, or it feels that way. Zippy pants make muffin top, so I had to temporarily abandon them. So I want to hide for a week or two, get myself back in order, and then come out.

If I weren’t teaching yoga now, there’s a decent chance that I would have done just that. But I can’t, because later today, and tomorrow, and going forward, I have a commitment to teach yoga. (I don’t call it a job.) A commitment that I love, and that I live. Because part of the reason I WANT to do it is to share it with others. So, as I always joke to my husband at this time of year, some days my success is that people can come to my yoga class and say, “See? She can do it, and she sure isn’t shaped like a yoga teacher!”

And that’s okay. Because that really IS a success. I’m happy to support that line of thinking.

Back to the squirrel. (“Look! Squirrel!) This morning’s squirrel was fat and sassy, but his (or her) girthy butt was out there, confident as ever. That extra fat, designed to keep him warm and fed during the winter, did not hold him back from leaping with abandon towards a nearby tree branch. It didn’t stop him from balancing and then running on a wood track maybe an inch wide. He didn’t fall, he didn’t balk.

His body didn’t forget what to do. It didn’t lose strength because it had more to carry, it gained it. His power was palpable, the sinew twitching beneath his meaty haunches.

He was also full of joy. Strong and free, season be damned. He was in a good mood.

Sometimes this Tarzan-esque squirrel, or another member of his brood, will taunt us through the window, luring our drishti away to follow his antics, stopping just short of jamming his little squirrel thumbs into his ears and waggling his tongue at us. He is playful but business-like.

If you’re feeling the same way as I am, hesitant to drag your holiday-plumped, pale, wintertime self to do anything physical, come on out.

You’re strong, and your body hasn’t forgotten it. You’re stable, and you will see that you can count on it. You’re flexible, in body AND mind, and that’s what will get you there. And you’re beautiful, which you will realize as soon as you join the rest of us on our mats and see the whole group of us as individual, lovely disasters.

Funny, when I started this blog years ago I used the word “musings” to describe it, but I’m not sure I have done that at all. I think I tend to use Facebook for my musings, Twitter for my criticism (most people I know in my age group and older are on Facebook so I can be meaner on Twitter and still not blow my cover), and Snapchat for…well, snapchat.

I avoid writing unless I feel I have the time and inspiration for a full, concise essay with a message and hook and an ending. Why? No one sees this anyway, for the most part! So I’m gonna MUSE!

Yesterday evening, I realized as I stood in line for fresh peach ice cream, a seasonal offering at Mitchells, that at that very moment when my husband and I were capping off a long day of sun, food, and cocktails in the searing late summer Sunday heat, a boy I went to high school with–and with whom my husband would eventually cross office space with–was sitting at a service to bury his 19-year old son who had committed suicide. We had visited with the family at the wake earlier in the day, not knowing what to do or say besides a hug, tears, and the promise of prayers. Being thankful for our mental health and that of our children, my husband and I, murmuring taboo words about what life would be like for this family now that every day would cease to be about managing the lifelong depression and emotional chaos of this boy. Realizing that on the day of his birth, they had a perfect baby and life was just beginning, and no matter what happened in the years after that, on one blissful day that baby was fresh and new like we all are once and nothing was “wrong.”

I wouldn’t look at the poster boards of photographs of the boys as a child. I didn’t know him, had never met him. I didn’t have waterproof mascara on. I was afraid of touching that place which I wanted to avoid.

And then, fully appreciating the possibly obscene juxtaposition of our day vs. theirs, we went off to enjoy Cleveland’s refurbished downtown areas, waterfront, dinner, drinks, ice cream. Celebrating our own fifteen years of wedded bliss, and bliss is pretty much an apt description of it. Why do some get so much on their shoulders, and all that has been on my shoulders, it seems, is the sunshine that I seek so fervently this time of year?

So why write when I have no pat answer or cute meme to punctuate these thoughts? Musings. I’m just musing. And that’s how it works.

And a few less important things that really take up room in my head: I want our local weather person to stop telling me whether to eat my meal on the patio or in the air conditioning. I want her to stop instructing children what weight jacket to wear to the bus stop, and for the sake of all that is meterological I want her to stop sharing recipes. Just tell me the weather. I can make the rest of the decisions on my own.

I think BlueApron or whatever this gourmet food delivery and recipe thing is called is stupid. How hard is it to go the store and buy the six items needed for a recipe? This is another reason why people hate Americans. I know I’m right about this, and I know you probably feel the same way about some things I do, like posting yoga poses and swishing with coconut oil and still having a land-line. But these are my musings, so today I’m right.

Now, after months, I wrote something. So now I’m free to go make a playlist for my noon yoga class, because I feel like that’s fun and this is work. Why, I’m not sure, because I get paid for the yoga and not for the writing. Which is another hilarious turn of events since my intention was not to necessarily teach yoga. But two great yoga jobs were tossed into my lap like a hot potato (vs. a football, because if you toss a football into my lap I will let it fall because I think football is mostly unnecessary in my life, but a potato (hot or otherwise) I will never let pass me by) and I am completely, unexpectedly energized by teaching.